Meet the right people: Organizers, mentors and participants at Startup Weekends are people willing to give up an entire weekend to aim for a higher purpose, sharing their ideas & know-how and collaborate with others. This is just great if you’re looking for people who can help you building a new business.

Education on the go: Startup Weekends are all about learning by doing, whether you’re learning a new skill or a new way of thinking. Don’t just listen to theory, build your own strategy and test it as you go. These are 21st skills, baby!

Join a global community: If you attend Startup Weekend Zwolle, you will automatically join the global Startup Weekend community. You can hardly imagine how incredible valuable this will be: you’ll be able to connect with community leaders and subject matter experts all over the world. Basicly you will feel as joining an new startup family with people willing to “give first”.

Great mentors: Local tech and startup leaders participate in Startup Weekends and give feedback to participants. Interact with the movers and shakers in your community.

Be the first: This year, Startup Weekend celebrates its 10th year anniversary. Many cities have held a Startup Weekend already – but this year is the very first edition of Startup Weekend Zwolle. So, this might sound a little weird, you’ll have bragging rights if join us 🙂

Kick your own ass: Are you thinking about your idea for a very long time? Startup Weekend gives you a real kick up the ass. You’ll leave Startup Weekend Zwolle buzzing with creative energy. In fact, on average 80% of attendees wants to continue with their startups after the weekend. So after 2 days you realise you can really achieve a lot if you just put your mind to it.

Validate your ideas: A startup Weekend offers your various levels of validation. First up it is the attendees as a whole that choose which ideas make it through to the “finals”, so right off the bat you are getting a good poll of smart people as to whether your idea is any good or not! At Startup Weekend Cologne for example, about 30 ideas have been pitched and 12 are selected to be worked on, so right away you know whether your idea resonates with people. If your idea does make it through, then you will be pitching on the Sunday to a panel of judges, typically the judges award 1st 2nd and 3rd placings, so if you were to finish in the top 3 you’d really know you were on to something!

Meet your co-founder: Most people who attend a Startup Weekend are serious about learning how to build and launch startups. So you can create relationships that last long past the weekend – and you might meet your co-founder here.

Have fun: During the weekend working alongside awesome people who share your ideas. Startup Weekend is meant to be fun and entertaining so enjoy it.

Solve local problems: Do you think that one of your idea can change Zwolle or have a positive impact in your group of people? Bring your idea notebook with you and start making a positive change in your local community. Besides this, most local challenges also apply to other places, so keep in mind you can scale up as well.

Recruit new people: Startup Weekend usually attracts highly educated (young) professionals, great designers, IT specialists such as developers and people with entrepreneurial minds. So if you’re eager to get in touch with them, Startup Weekend is the place to be.

Learn new skills: Startup Weekends are perfect opportunities to work on a new platform, learn a new programming language, or give guerrilla marketing a try. With nothing to lose there’s no reason not to step outside your comfort zone.

Learn how to launch a business: Startup Weekend is the epitome of Lean Startup Methodology. In just 2 days, you’ll learn the essentials about launching a new business.

Try a new cider: Perhaps you already know that Startup Weekend Zwolle is sponsored by Heineken. But I guess you don’t know you can try their new cider as well.

Save a lot of money: Startup Weekends are very, very affordable (about € 85 for a regular ticket). Your ticket includes seven meals, snacks, and all the coffee you can drink. Compare this to any typical business event and you know what I’m talking about. Startup Weekend gives you a lot more value for your money!

Enjoy gadgets & tech stuff: At Startup Weekend Cologne, I met a Dutch entrepreneur wearing a new pair of Spectacles. So you can expect attendees to bring all kind of gadgets and new stuff they use for business – of just for fun. Although this should not be your primairy reason to attend a Startup Week, it’s pretty cool, especially if you like new stuff.

Prizes: Winners of Startup Weekend Zwolle will get great prices. We understand you’re curious about it, but we can assure these prices will help the winning team to take their ideas to the NEXT LEVEL!

Great facilitator: At Startup Weekend Cologne, some greek guy called Stavros Messinis was facilitating the event. And he did an amazing job, so we asked him to join in Zwolle. And we’re very happy to share he will be our facilitator.

The city: Of course, there’s no way to compare Zwolle to New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam or even Cologne 🙂 Nonetheless, our city has a lot to offer: nice working places, excellent public transport, great sporting facilities, plenty educationial possibilities, social initiatives, great events all year long, a beautiful city centre, an healthy environment and nice people. The region of Zwolle also performs at the top-3 economic regions in the Netherlands.